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Take Up Your Cross and Follow Him

9/4/2013

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What does it mean to "take up our cross?"

When he described this choice, Jesus had a decision that only he recognized.  On one hand was a path that other people wanted for him, to make him king of the Israelites.  They could have deposed Herod, put Jesus in the place David once held, therein fulfilling their limited, social understanding of who their Messiah would be.

Or as Jesus knew, he could give himself over to the people in a different way, to torture and death, sacrificed because humanity is too broken and sinful to honor goodness and truth when it stands in our midst.

Only Jesus knew that through death on the cross, he would become the ultimate King of all nations, the Savior and the mighty Lamb.  Only Jesus valued that path more than becoming the king of a small, impoverished nation, fully under Roman occupation.   See almost ever time, we humans will choose a lesser victory rather than the challenge and pain of acquiring God's purpose for our lives.  Let me reiterate that - EVERYONE else wanted Jesus to aspire to being king of the Jewish nation at that time... not King of kings for all time.

Only Jesus pursued his calling, his purpose from God.  No one else understood. 

And only Jesus had to literally carry the cross to become Savior of the universe.  For the rest of us our cross is not literal, but a description of our burden, our pain, that stands between us now, and the life God calls us towards.  

The choice is always ours.  We can live a lesser path.  We can become kings of our own broken country.  Or we can pursue God's will alone, and live the triumph only He knows is ours to claim.  

It won't be easy.  
We will have to let go of our false hopes.  
We will have to deal in truth.  
It will likely hurt sometimes.  
It will take great courage.  
It will require trust in God - the One who sees what we cannot yet see.

Yet it will be greater than any other possibility for our lives.

"Take up your cross, and follow Him."

In Christ!
 
-M4
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Parenting & Freedom: Sheltering Your Child

8/15/2012

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You will find VERY few posts on here regarding parenting advice.  Frankly, regardless of the number of initials behind your name, you don't know how it has all gone until your child is somewhere around 35 years old.  Only then can an honest assessment be made.  

BUT here is a one tidbit of cautionary advice: there is a difference between 'sheltering' and 'constraining'.  

See this God of ours made us free.  Freedom is something we must contend with as humans, as individuals, and as parents.  Our children are about to live totally free.  We have a few years to prepare them to contend with that reality.  

I see a lot of kids the same age as my son who have fewer privileges, less access to the things associated with modern life (the internet, etc) and more fear-based parental presence.

We often use the word 'sheltered' to describe these kids, but that is not the right description.  Shelter is a beautiful concept, Biblically.  God uses it 

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Oswego District 308 Is At It Again

8/10/2012

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 I stopped watching the news years ago; too many negative stories and too many foolish commentators.  I always wondered why news organizations did not deliver what people said they wanted, positive stories about people doing positive things.  While the world is obviously full of violence and horror, it is also full of goodness and regular blessings.  Each day people do far more good than evil but the headlines do not reflect that truth. 

            I have come to see why news outlets carry the sensational over the sentimental: that is what people want.  Are people more likely to rubber neck in traffic at a terrible accident or a kid’s lemonade stand?  Will we listen to the latest story on violence in Chicago or the latest work of the local Cub Scout Troop?  There are exceptions to this rule of course, but people like you and me, are the reason the news is what it is. 

            No local topic has generated as much friction as the change of leadership in the Oswego 308 School District.  I love living in Oswego and pray for our school district daily.  Public school leadership can literally be a thankless job.  Yet 308 seems to have wrestled with many issues publicly regarding staff, buildings, and funding. 

            So to go against the tide, I wanted to share some good news.  I wanted to highlight our experience with Oswego 308 where the folks can’t be thanked enough, commended enough, and written about warmly enough.  While our schools have problems, they also have amazing people who teach, clean, service, lead and listen, and I want to take this opportunity to share our experience.   

              Our new church, Big Life Community Church, meets at Oswego East High School.  Ken Lesley is a building manager at Oswego East.   From the moment we approached the school about leasing space, and met with Ken to talk it over, Ken has been a pillar of graciousness and intentional service.  He and his staff see that the entire experience is arranged beautifully and with care.  They love doing their job and have helped our new church above and beyond all the way.

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Who Gets to Lead?

5/30/2012

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In most social settings it will eventually come out: I am a minister.  And that makes people do the weirdest things.  Some hide their beer as though I had not been holding one myself.  Most replay the entire conversation quickly in their heads to remember how many times they cursed.  More often than not people will fumble out a statement that goes something like this, "Wow, I could never do that.  I could never lead a church.”

     I often remind folks of two things: first, there is nothing special about me, no holy water I drink each morning, no halo around my head.  I am just a man, a guy, a bit of a nerd, a football fan, who leads because I have been asked to lead by God.  And second, what I have learned is this: God is asking each of you to lead in some capacity, too.   

     God defines leadership as servanthood in this world.  And God asks each of us to love each other to the point of serving.  And that means you.  Yes, I spent eight years acquiring a college and graduate degree in theology and saturating myself with biblical study at the highest academic level.   Yes, I have seventeen years of experience in church leadership on my resume.  But what this experience and study has really led me to is a clear, faithful, Jesus-modeled landing spot on who 'leads'.  God only wants leaders who serve.  And God wants servants who give their best.  Beyond that, just as Jesus demonstrated in His ministry, there aren't really any barriers!  Women can serve and men can serve and therefor lead.  God needs young people who can lead and wise elders who can lead.  The church needs single people who can lead and married people who can lead.  And God even needs divorced and remarried people like myself to model servant leadership.

     As the church in America continues to shrink, we have seen, and I fear we will continue to see, a closing of the theological mind.   And if the church fails to serve with the best of the human mind and the human heart's capacity, as God created us to lead, as God commanded in the first Commandment, we, the church, fail.  If we, the church, tell 50% of our community that even though they run a business, or manage in company 6 days out of the week, they may not have a leadership or teaching title on Sundays because of her gender, we fail.  If we tell the 50% of our community that is divorced or remarried that we, the church, will forever define you and condemn you by your past, unlike our leader Jesus modeled, we fail.  And if the mission of God is sidelined by the failure of the church to lead, the blessing of God sorely needed by so many will be missed.

     Even as we have a leadership crisis in our culture I am hopeful for the future of God’s church.  God has a way of getting done what God wants done.  In surprising and unexpected ways, through mangers, crosses, and empty tombs, God will get done what He wants to get done, to shatter the darkness of earth with Love.  Let us move past the legalisms of the past that have and continue to shrink the church in America and move into God’s future where servant leaders lead and the mission of God trumps all.





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Is the Bible Against Women Teaching or in Leadership?

1/20/2012

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Short answer, no, the Bible isn't against it and the church shouldn't be.  The Bible actually supports women in teaching and leadership roles repeatedly.  Here are the quick instances that come to mind:  1) Christ himself revealed himself to the woman at the well, who proclaimed His Lordship to her whole town - many believing in Him as a direct result.  2) He also explicitely sent Mary from the tomb to reveal the resurrection to the Disciples.  3) The Isrealite people were led by Deborah, as judge, and 4) saved by Esther as queen.  5) And even in the non-Isrealite traditions, the Queen of Sheba was respected and given hospitality by the Isrealite king, Solomon.  6) And even much maligned Jezabel's leadership authority was never questioned even though she was feared for being straight-up evil.   
 
The entire prohibition against women teaching is sourced in a few sentances in Paul's letters and routinely taken out of the context of his humanity and his good ministry.  As to the first point, Paul was Paul, a human, sinful and as lost as any of us.  He was not the Christ, and he himself repeatedly affirms that he is not to be treated as the Christ.  Paul himself describes that in Christ there is no male or female, that love trumps everything, that love is NOT insistance on one's own way, that placing a law of any kind above the work of the Holy Spirit destroys the power of the Gospel.  He repeatedly confronts believers to get out from being under religious law (like circumcision), but then he ardently applies religious law to women regarding silence and head covering.  And there's the rub... But seriously, who can blame him, those days were very oppressive towards women - that was the norm - he was officiating in his present time.  Paul was a single man, who was doing his absolute best to share the Gospel and keep his congregations from falling into chaos.  He just displayed his humanity from time to time, blinded by his own blind spots, passing judgement that can't be passed, etc...just like us.  It's not like he was Jesus, after all.
 
 So anyway, the vast weight of history through scripture supports that women are not prohibited from leadership by God, though it obviously seems strikingly less frequent.  I don't want to get too deep into the historical aspect, but it is worth mentioning we are in the very first era in human history - really only about 30 years of the entire human history - in which women have been granted any semblance of equality or opportunity, and that is only happening here in Western society.   It is only here and now that men and women may each individually grapple with serving God with their entire mind, body and spirit to their best capacity.  It is only here and now that each person can truly be treated as a creation who God has ordained for good work in such a time as this.  That is an exciting opportunity for the body of Christ.  
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I super <3 failure.

1/14/2012

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No I don't.  Failure sucks,  but this puts it into perspective.

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Under the magnifying glass

9/8/2011

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One of the things I was asked to address in this blog was 'Christian hypocrisy'.  No single thing probably drives away more faith-curious people than a good dose of holier-than-thou, judgemental, misbehaving Christians.

Now I love Christians.  I happen to be one.  I was not always.  I understand the tension between trying to overcome sin and being human.  I even understand the temptation associated with overcoming a little sin and becoming judgemental.  We just have trouble remembering how lost we really were and recognizing how lost we still are.  I remember reading something the Good Lord said about blindness being a better condition than asserting we could see...  (more on that later.)

Unfortunately, when you get on a high horse, people are forced to look up to you.  And when people are forced to look up to somebody, they tend to get out their magnifying glasses and look for flaws.  It's true whether you are Abraham Lincoln, or Brittany Spears.  And nobody stands up to intense scrutiny very well.   We are all just too, well, human.

We could learn an important lesson from ants.  They are pretty humble creatures, work well together, and more are less are always cooked to a crisp by magnifying glasses.  Ants stay pretty lowly...pretty humble.  And that is a good place for a Christian to be:

 “You know that the worldly leaders lord their position over one another. It is not to be this way among you.  Whoever wishes to become great among you shall become like a servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be last like a slave; just as the Son of Man (Jesus) did not come to be served, but to serve..."  -Jesus, Matthew 20:25-26

The first will be last, the last first.  What social position do you claim?
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When I am a grown-up, I want to...

7/22/2011

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I think we stop thinking about what we want to be when we grow up sometime around age 14 when growing up becomes uncool.  Or maybe it is after that first semester in college where you swap the undecided major for the real commitment to...biology, education, business, whatever.  Or maybe it is after 4 or 5 years punching the time clock when you realize the dream job is NOT going to open up for you.

Whenever it happens, at some point we solidify on the path of doing, and forget we are still becoming.

One place I worked, I kept hearing about a man I knew well.  People would speak in reverential terms about what this man had done for them in years past, eager to tell me the stories.  Now this fellow is just an average, American guy - you could have asked his wife, and she would have told you so, straight out, with some anecdotes to prove it. He followed the Cubs and played an average game of golf.  At any rate, he didn't set out in his interactions with these folks to be revered, but the integrity and forthrightness of his relationships left that impact on people - in a way they brought up to talk about decades - DECADES - later.

That is awesome.  I want me some of that.

What if we thought about life and faith differently?  What if we imagined what kind of man or woman we wanted to become, what attributes we wanted to live, how generous, noble, caring, influential you wanted to become.

THEN, what if we really invest in the progress of becoming that person.  Like we would a biology major, or an education degree.  It might involve mentoring, accountability, investment, prayer.

Who could you be?
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A kick in the rear.

7/20/2011

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I need a coach.  And so do you.  When I played high school football I had amazing coaches.  Yet, when I explain to my son how they coached me he looks at me like I spent a year at Gitmo. 

Coach Brooks loved to tell me I was lazy.  Never mind I was always the first to practice, always in the weight room and a student to game film.  He knew I had a high standard for myself.  He knew I wanted to be more than good enough.  So when he caught even a whiff of delay in my effort he would erupt in my face in front of everyone. 

Coach V was a master of psychology.  One time I had a stinger in my shoulder at practice, the result of a very hard hit.  It took me a minute to get up but it was standard for the drill.  He pulled me aside and asked if I need to go to the showers early.  “No shame in being hurt.  No shame in taking care of yourself.  I am sure everyone would understand.  You run on in now and ice that shoulder down.”  I jumped to the front of the line in hopes of crushing whoever was next. 

I needed a good coach.  And so do you.  A good coach can call you out when you are settling for less than your best.  A good coach can confront you when you drift.  A good coach knows how to motivate you, saying just the right word.  A good coach never aims to beat you down but to lift you up, even if it takes unorthodox methods. 

This is what I love about the Lord.  He knows just what to say to motivate me, inspire me and get the best out of me.  He knows that no two people are the same.  He knows what capacity lies within each one of us.  And, if we will listen, he knows how to get it out of us. 

Everyone needs a coach.  Who is yours?      


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What is up with the church's view of women?

7/15/2011

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Whew - what a minefield!  Good people lovingly telling each other what they can and can't do because of piping, plumbing... genitals! Judgement, judgement, judgement.
It isn't that I want to BASH churches that insist women can't participate in ANY way God created them...but I am.
It is like they skipped the entirety of the Gospels - leaping right over them to Paul - and then over the most striking of Paul's writing to protect their position.
Jesus dealt with leadership issues over and over - he chose some of his disciples and some of his followers for certain things and not others.  His followers jockeyed for position outside of His gifting because they were, well, human.  And He corrected them with words that fall like a sledgehammer on modern hierarchy over and over.  'The least will be the greatest.  If you want to be exalted, become like a slave.'
Men, women, are you listening to the Lord?
Whosoever serves lowest - IS the greatest. 
Now that is hardly practical, right?  Somebody has to sit in the seat of honor and tell other folks what to do, right?
Not in God's economy.
And leadership gurus are catching up - the best recognize the essential humility required to lead in greatness - that others are the asset and leaders are the ones that are always lifting up another.
So what genitals are required?
Seems like a stupid question, doesn't it, way out of context with the leadership the Lord exhibited?  Yeah.
There are neither jews nor greeks, slaves nor free, males nor females, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Yeah - what he said.


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